Tour of Britain 2016 Stage 7a

Steve Cummings defended his hold on the Yellow Jersey, after taking fourth place in this morning’s Individual Time Trial in Bristol.

Meanwhile, three-time World Champion Tony Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) won today’s 15 kilometer race against the clock with a winning time of 18:06, beating BMC Racing’s Rohan Dennis by three-seconds.

Speaking afterwards, the Etixx Quick-Step rider said;

“In this peloton you have the world’s best time trialists, so it really makes it special for me. It’s also my first victory in the Tour of Britain, so it’s definitely a victory to remember.

“The course was really nice but the rain and wet roads made it a little bit dangerous because you have to fight for every second.

“I did a good recon and knew the corners quite well so knew how fast I could go, so for me it was fine. I didn’t really expect to be going so fast as the week has been quite hard for us, we had the jersey until yesterday and had to work a lot, so I didn’t feel fresh.

“But sometimes when you don’t expect a good performance you do even better, so I’m really happy. It’s my first international victory of the year so gives me a lot of morale.”

Giant Alpecin’s Tom Dumoulin rounded out the podium with the third fastest time, 5-seconds behind Dennis.

Cummings now holds a 38-second lead over Dumoulin and Dennis, followed by Tony Gallopin (otto-Soudal) in fourth at just over a minute.

Dumoulin also moved into the lead of the Chain Reaction Cycles Points Jersey thanks to his third spot, with a seven point lead over Cummings.

Riders will contest a six lap circuit race to complete the Bristol Stage later today.